'KFC Smikkelburg' #1.
Michiel Offerman is a Dutch graphic artist and illustrator, working through the Roughmen agency. As a comic artist, he has worked on creations like 'Bibbers enzo...' for the ADF foundation, 'Star Barz™' (2016-2017) for Eppo magazine, 'KFC Smikkelburg' (2020-2021) for KFC Northern Europe and 'Luthon-Höge' (2021-2022) for Maxix magazine.
Early life
Born in Haarlem in 1975, Offerman grew up reading Eppo magazine, and especially enjoyed the humor features by Martin Lodewijk and Eddy Ryssack. During his education at the Graphic Lyceum Amsterdam (1991-1995), he discovered more adult-oriented comics by Moebius, Loisel and Bill Watterson.
'Bibbers'. Spookie is invited to take a swim, but hesitates. In the final panel he reveals he isn't scared that the water isn't clean, it's just that he "sucks up a lot of water."
Commercial art
Since the 1990s, Offerman has been working as a freelance artist in the advertising industry, who has worked on storyboard art and visualizations for clients like Heineken, Unox, McDonalds and Independer. Since 2003, he is represented as an illustrator, visualizer and storyboarder by the Roughmen agency. He has worked regularly for the regional HMC newspapers (Noordhollands Dagblad, Haarlems Dagblad, IJmuider Courant, Leidsch Dagblad en De Gooi- en Eemlander), making illustrations for the citizens' complaints page, as well as the 'Tessa@work' column (2017-2019). For the Vizier magazine of ADF, a foundation to help people with fears, compulsions and phobias, Offerman has made the comic strip 'Bibbers enzo...' (2008-2020).
'Star Barz™'.
Star Barz™
In 2014, Eppo editor Ger Apeldoorn accidentally used one of Offerman's advertising drawings in an article about Martin Lodewijk's 75th anniversary, believing it was Lodewijk's artwork. Offerman contacted the editor about the mistake, which resulted in a collaboration between the two men. Their funny science fiction comic 'Star Barz™' (2016-2017) dealt with a group of adventurers commissioned to explore the galaxy for new planets to open franchises of a galactic coffee chain. The comic made its debut in Eppo in early 2016, and ran in short stories until halfway through 2017.
'Star Barz™'.
Studio collaborations
For several years, Michel Offerman shared a studio space with the comic creators Gerben Valkema, Alex van Koten and Robbert Damen in an old hospital building in the center of Haarlem. In late 2022, Offerman relocated to a new studio space in an old signal keeper's house on platform 3 of Haarlem station, which he shares with illustrator Emanuel Wiemans. These creative environments have resulted in several collaborations between the artists.
'Johnny Goodbye' (Stripglossy #13, June 2019).
With Damen as scriptwriter, Offerman made a tribute story to Martin Lodewijk's 'Agent 327' for Eppo magazine (March 2017). In 2019, they also revived Martin Lodewijk and Dino Attanasio's classic gangster comic 'Johnny Goodbye' for the 13th edition of Stripglossy magazine. In that same year, Offerman additionally made a new short story with Attanasio and Dick Matena's soccer comic 'De Macaroni's', written by the series' original scriptwriter and published in Stripglossy #15. in 2022, he additionally succeeded Daan Jippes as the artist of another Dino Attanasio creation, 'Spaghetti', written for Stripglossy by Frans Hasselaar. In addition, Offerman has made editorial cartoons for Stripglossy magazine, including for Alex van Koten's column.
With both Damen and Van Koten, Offerman created four comic booklets of 'KFC Smikkelburg' (2020-2021), which were distributed with the Kids Meals at Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. The assignment came through the editors of Donald Duck magazine at DPG Media, who were approached with the project by KFC Northern Europe. Since they couldn't use Disney characters, they developed a completely new concept and set of characters, presenting a fictional funny animal franchise of the fast food chain. Damen and Van Koten wrote the stories, with Offerman doing the art duties. Editorial sections were written by DPG's comic editor Bas Schuddeboom, while Emma Damen provided the coloring.
Since then, Offerman and his studio colleagues have collaborated on several other commercial comic assignments for DPG's Sales department, including promotional comics for the Bol.com toy app, the NRV travel agency and a junior savings account for the ABN AMRO bank. These appeared as advertisements in magazines like Donald Duck, Zo Zit Dat and Kidsweek. One notable project was a special comic booklet for Center Parcs holiday villages, 'De Blijerheide' (2025). In 2023, he illustrated two comic strips written by Bas Schuddeboom aimed at the promotion of reading among youngsters, printed in the DPG youth magazines.
'Luthon-Höge'.
Luthon-Höge
For the new Belgian comic magazine Maxix, Ritstier teamed up with scriptwriter Willem Ritstier to create 'Luthon-Höge' (2021-2022), a series about a young police inspector who joins the "gendarmerie" of a small countryside town in 1950s France. For the production, Offerman received assistance from Menno Wittebrood (backgrounds and inking) and Alex van Koten (coloring). During the Stripschapprijzen award ceremony in February 2023, the first 'Luthon-Höge' book collection, published by Personalia, won the prize for "Album of the Year 2022".
Graphic contributions
In 2019, Michiel Offerman contributed a comic page to Leon Verhoeven's comic cookbook 'Strip Kookboek', published by Personalia. On occasion, he has also provided inking duties for the Belgian artist Charel Cambré for his 'Amoras' and 'Robbedoes' comic projects. In 2025, Offerman drew the six-page story 'Poldergeist!' from a script by Bas Schuddeboom for Menno Kooistra's horror anthology 'Bloeddorst #2'.
Comic strip for reading promotion, published in DPG titles like Donald Duck, Tina and Zo Zit Dat (2023).